Scleroderma patient

[snugglebug]

I was diagnosed with CREST/Scleroderma which is believed to be overlapped with Lupus.   Been doing well for the most part.   My doctor put me on toprol when I was diagnosed with pericarditus.   Later I was told that I had micro valve prolapse and irregular heart beats.   I just wore that heart monitor for 24 hours.   The doctor said that the results  were not good and that my heart was very irregular, mostly worse at night.    He just commented that he can live with the issue of the heart skipping a beat but not with those kind of results.     I feel like my heart beats fasts and hard,  which makes it difficult to fall asleep.   I sometimes get a little light headed or feeling dizzy.   Is this related to anything?   Would these problems be related to scleroderma because I did not think CREST involved the heart.    Should I be worried about all of this?   I increased  my toprol to twice a day, but I don't see a big change yet.  

[ireneo]

I've been reading up a little on lupus since my daughter in law has it and heart arrhythmias and pericarditis sometimes occur with lupus. Since scleroderma is also an auto-immune issue, perhaps it's related. What has your rheumatologist said about all of this? Mitral valve prolapse has different degrees of severity. Do you know how bad yours is? And I think it can trigger arrhys too. Is your pericarditis cleared up now? I'm not much help just firing questions at you. Ask your doctor exactly what your heart is doing. He can explain it to you. And if the toprol isn't helping (I hope you got his OK before you changed your dose), perhaps another med would help.